This invention is concerned with substituted piperazinylpyrazines and pharmaceutically acceptable salts thereof which demonstrate serotoninmimetic activity and hence are useful as anorexigenic, anti-depressant, analgesic and hypnotic agents, to a method of preparing these compounds, to pharmaceutical formulations containing these compounds, and to methods of administering these compounds to an animal or human.
Obesity is a fairly common condition and a potentially serious one in view of the correlation between incidence of various diseases and the degree to which a person is overweight. For example, obese persons succumb statistically more frequently to cardiovascular renal disease than do persons of normal weight. Obesity likewise results in higher death rates from diabetes, nephritis, pneumonia, cirrhosis, appendicitis and postoperative complications. Since obesity often occurs simply as a consequence of excessive intake of calories, good management of the condition in these cases can be achieved by restricting the caloric intake. Frequently, however, the patient has difficulty in initiating and maintaining dietary restrictions, making it necessary to employ anorexigenic drugs as adjuvants to therapy.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide piperazinylpyrazines which are effective anorexigenic agents. Another object is to provide pharmaceutical formulations for the administration of these and other related anorexigenic agents. Further objects are to provide methods for preparing the piperazinylpyrazines and for administering piperazinylpyrazine anorexigenic agents to a mammalian animal or human.